Atropos
by Cassie Jamie
Summary: Quiet as death and he understood that pun now. [SLASH]
1. Atropos

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Pairing: H/E

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Atropos

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            It's funny how life turns out.  One minute, you're a healthy twenty-something with a career and a place in the home of the best person you know and then the next…the next you're a patient they're showing to the med students.

            "Classic heart failure." The MD said, with a smile on his face, like I were a computer simulation and *not* a human being who was told not twenty minutes before that I would not live to old age.

            Horatio picks me up from the hospital.  Worried and worn down, that puzzle in his head missing pieces which he hates because it includes me.  He pulls away from the curb, drives toward home, "What'd the doctor say?" He asks, hands nervously tightening around the wheel.

            And I tell him.  All the details.

            He slows the Hummer, leaves it to trickle down the road we live on with his little adopted daughter, "I guess that's why you've been so tired lately." He comments just because he has to say something or he'll lose his steady grip on reality.

            "I guess."

            "I'm giving you time off.  You need to rest." It's worded with sincerity.  A carefully hidden order despite that fact that he cannot order me to do anything.

            The look I give him would make Calleigh crumble, "No.  Work is good for me.  The doctors said I need to keep moving." I pause, "Besides, I feel fine."

            "Eric, don't lie to me." He peeks at me over the rim of his sunglasses; the blue pools boring into me, through to my soul and I hate when he does that because I can't refuse him anything.

            "I'm just a little tired, H.  Please don't stop me from working."

            He stops the car, unbuckles his seatbelt and turns to me.  Leaves three seconds for me to realize what he's about to do before those plundering lips are on me, mouth like silk open to me, with a hand light grounding me in place by my neck.  He clicks away the seconds in his head, knowing by now where the line between `I love you' and `let's fuck right here' is.

            The redhead pulls back.  His voice calm, but resigned when he speaks, "Take the time off, okay?  Time to spend with Emmie and to figure out what the hell we're going to do.  More time to take care of yourself."

            For a few minutes, I am silent.  Quiet as death and I understand that pun now.  Then I whisper, "I have to say something, so don't interrupt for a minute, okay?"

            "Okay." He rests a hand on my leg, and rubs his thumb on my knee.  He knows I like it, keeps an insistent rhythm.

            I choke, "I was thinking today about death, and Alexx mentioned that when her grandmother died, everyone in her family was there and they were sad but grateful that she'd had a good life." The tears start falling – from his eyes and my own, "And my family isn't going to be there and I'm only thirty."

            He latches on to me, "I know." He sniffs, trying to be a little better at maintaining emotion.  He prides himself on that and right now it's failing horribly. God, who will take care of him when I'm gone?  "But you know what…my family will be there.  All of them.  And Emilie and the entire lab."

            "H." I strangle out amid the sobs, "Maybe my dad was right. Maybe this is punishment for being…"

            "Don't you dare believe that for one second. You didn't choose this life.  It's what you were given, and you're happy.  I know it.  Your father's just a pretentious asshole if he's willing to give you up just because you pursued me instead of Calleigh." He pets my hair, kisses my scalp, "And if your family won't come…" His chest tightens, and I know he's upset with being on this train of thought, "Well, they didn't deserve you anyway."

            I smile into his neck, "I love you."

            "I love you, too." He tugs me away and leans in to kiss me again, "I'll always love you." The breath treads across my salt-tasting lips.

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*v* Cassie Jamie *v*

csimiami@cassie-jamie.com


	2. Harbinger

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Pairing: H/E

Sequel: Atropos

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Harbinger

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            He sucks in air, trying to get more of the life-giving oxygen into his abused lungs.  The IV in one arm to keep him at a normal level of hydration is taped in place and I run my thumb over the harsh adornment.

            Six years since he was diagnosed and I still can't convince him to go to the hospital.  He's too adamant about where he will be when his time comes – wants to be home, in our bed, with our daughter.

            "H…" He sniffs against the evident pain in his swollen belly.

            "What?" I whisper in response, "You want something to eat?"

            "No.  Just making sure you're still here."

            I hold back the rebellious tears; his fear and the spectre in many of his nightmares in the very beginning, that I would leave and he would truly be alone.  Abandoned by everyone he needed so badly.

            He curls one hand to his chest and moves to tighten the second in my hair after I crawl beneath the sheet.

            He seeks out my touch, then withdraws when his sense of security is sated.  A comfort response, a gesture came from the final blowout with his father weeks after he drafted a living will.  A screaming argument in the middle of the CSI lab with every member of the staff present, until Pavel reached out a hard palm, swiping it across Eric's face.  The crack it left behind hung in the molten silence.

            I stepped in then, escorting him out of my building, though not devoid of my own verbal thrashing.

            Not one member of the Delko family has sought out his company in the last five years.  And I thank what ever higher power rules us as they are not to come to his wake or funeral, saving me from what would've undoubtedly become my outlet for half a decade of rage at this deplorable situation.

            The bedroom door flies open and in races the little blue-eyed brunette known simply as Em to those who love her, "Papa!" She cries, happily, unabashed of the tubes and wires she's known since she was a toddler, "Look what I made you in art class today!" She proudly holds up her artistic rendition of him, drawn with all the skill her seven-and-a-half years could muster.

            "It's beautiful, baby." He sighs, before she drops her backpack and picture to the floor, followed closely by her jacket, shoes, and socks.  Calmly, she rejoins us, landing and snuggling into the gap between he and I.  She's out in minutes; Calleigh pads into the room.

            "Sorry.  She got away from me." She strokes her godchild's silken hair, then notes that Eric has fallen into slumber as well, "How's he been?"

            "Breathing's getting harder.  Dominick said he'd stop by tomorrow with oxygen for him." I inform, knowing she worries for him more and more each day that passes, worries that he won't be for her upcoming wedding.  "Tim downstairs?"

            "Yeah.  We're gonna take her home with us tonight, alright?  Give you guys some time alone without the munchkin coming in every thirty seconds."

            I nod and thank her slyly, silently.

            She takes away our child, humming softly while she heads to Emilie's bedroom, once more leaving me to my brooding.

            It wasn't fair that day when I picked him up to a darkened smile of false hope and it wasn't fair that I found love only to know that I could not keep it.  It was not fair to that glorious baby girl to have to grow up with a sick papa instead of the ballet recitals and sports we had planned, nor was it fair that he trained for so many years to do a job he loved then had to leave when his heart could no longer keep up to the demands.

            And it sure as hell wasn't fair that the entire lab had to find out about us and about the disease because of a selfish old man's idea that his sole son had to marry a woman or be expelled from the lineage.

            In his dream state, he shifts and shimmies until he's molded to me, practiced so he no longer removes his medical equipment in the act.

I lay a hand on his back, and I can feel his heart racing in his ribcage.  Pounding rapidly in an effort to pump the crimson liquid throughout his extremities.

Still he trudges on, waiting for a transplant coordinator to call with the message that he has his second chance.  There's little hope for such a miracle; he's placed his faith in the treatment plan that he deals with every day.

            Yet soon it won't be enough.  He's lost time; he's lost what should have been his best years.  And he's still losing bits of both to the inevitable passage of loathsome time.

            Another ragged breath.

            "Eric…" I kiss his temple, trim fingers through the months' worth of uncut and untamed black locks, "I love you."

Then he cracks an eye at me, and speaks the three words back, conviction in his voice that reminds me why we enter the same repetitive routine from daylight until dusk.

            I look out the window and gaze at the afternoon sky, safe in the knowledge that we muddled through another grouping of four and twenty hours, perhaps being granted the miracle that we'll get one more.

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*v* Cassie Jamie *v*

csimiami@cassie-jamie.com


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